Today I posted an obituary on Forbes of Corwin Hardham, the founder and CEO of Makani Power. I had been following Makani and Corwin with interest for a few years, and was sad to hear of his passing last month. […]

A windmill at the American Wind Power Center and Museum, another stop on our Texas wind-energy tour. Photo credit: David Ferris

Two weeks ago I decamped to Lubbock, Texas, for the 22nd annual conference of the Society of Environmental Journalists. A highlight of these conferences is fleeing the hotel for field trips to places […]

The ARPA-E Energy Innovation Summit took place last week just outside Washington, D.C., and the show floor was filled with projects that promise to advance the United States as a force in clean energy. Most of the exhibiting companies were very young and in possession of early-stage technologies that are difficult to explain. But a […]

This is David’s summary of the week’s news for the Matter Network. To see the original, or post your comments, go here.

Solar’s Sugar Daddy: During his Saturday address, President Obama lavished an astonishing $2 billion in loan guarantees upon two solar companies. This upended the administration’s seedling strategy with renewables […]

I am coming to the conclusion that the wind turbines of today — hundreds of feet tall, sporting three blades, clustered in the cornfields like rotary clubs — will soon go the way of the Model T. Good for their day, but we’ve moved on. I explored alternative designs in wind power for my latest “Innovate” column in Sierra magazine, and can report that 31 flavors of turbines are poised to engulf the plain ol’ vanilla version we know so well. It isn’t that anything’s so wrong with Old Reliable; it’s more that there’s categories of wind that a giant whirligig just can’t use. […]